


The Mysterious Case of the Birthing Curse

by Amielleon



Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Also contains various straight ships which I didn't want to clutter the tags with, Childbirth, Crack, Fake/Pretend Relationship, M/M, The Heterosexuality Plague
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-16
Updated: 2015-11-19
Packaged: 2018-05-01 21:12:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5221019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amielleon/pseuds/Amielleon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After witnessing a strange rash of childbirths around camp, Takumi and Leon desperately seek protection by declaring themselves married to each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. An Affliction Most Mysterious

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Traincat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Traincat/gifts).



> For traincat's birthday, and also No Shame November, because a certain someone likes fake dating.
> 
> Wanted to put the first part up here in time for her birthday. More to follow eventually.

The sounds of a woman screaming in labor rung throughout the castle walls yet again as Takumi hummed loudly to himself and watered the cabbage patch. 

It was the fifth time they'd had to welcome a new baby since he joined up with the army. When they had welcomed the first baby, he figured that Felicia and Tsukuyomi were both young and prone to sloppiness and he supposed that neither of them had the heart to go back on their mistake—although it was rather mysterious to him, since he was fairly certain that it hadn't been nine months since the war had started. It hadn't even been seven. Perhaps they went far back? 

But then his little sister was suddenly expectant, and Takumi was absolutely _certain_ that she had not been pregnant until recently. He had still yet to forgive Silas. Who was that asshole, anyway? What did she see in his stupid upturned hair and his stable-boy scent? How did he convince her to bear his child at her tender age, in the middle of the war?

And so on and so on. By now he had grown halfway numb to this bizarre phenomenon unique to Castle Kamui. He learned to tune out the sound of banging headboards and screaming mothers and crying babies and focus on the rustic beauty of small, tender green leaves peeping through the dirt—

“Ah... Prince Takumi, got some time perhaps?”

Mozume had joined him, her hands suspiciously empty. They did garden together often, but she was always carrying giant buckets of water and shovels and hoes, so it was odd to see her empty-handed.

“Mozume. What's up?”

“U-um... there's somethin' I'd set my heart on for a long time...”

Takumi dropped the watering can.

“That the man by my side could do good work in the fields, that he'd be someone who'd do what needs done...”

“Sorry!” Takumi said a bit too loudly. “I think Kamui's calling me to her room!”

“Oh,” Mozume said, her face falling. “You'd best get goin' then. See ya tomorrow.”

Takumi ran toward the treehouse at top speed.

* * *

Once he was certain Mozume was distracted by the cabbages, he took the long way around to the dining hall, where Leon was staffed this afternoon.

“Welcome—”

“Leon, help,” Takumi said, collapsing all over the countertop. “I'm too young to be a father.”

Leon paused, folding his hands behind his back and peering down at Takumi. “I take it you've heard, then?”

“Mozume tried to propose to me and— ...heard what?”

“So you haven't heard,” Leon observed.

“What haven't I heard,” Takumi said flatly, all of the fight going out of him.

A childbirth scream leaked in from the door he'd left ajar. On second thought, it sounded oddly familiar.

“Well, it would appear that your retainer and mine have gotten quite close lately,” Leon said dryly.

Takumi lifted his head, stared at Leon, and said, “Please tell me it's Odin.”

“It's not Odin.”

Takumi let his head fall against the countertop with a thunk.

Leon frowned at him. “I'll have you know that Zero is actually quite reliable—”

“ _I don't want to think about him and Oboro like that_ ,” Takumi hissed against the linoleum. “It's almost as bad as when Sakura—”

He promptly stopped talking, because he did not want to remind himself about his little sister and her absentminded teenage daughter whom he had met the other day.

“Actually,” Leon said nonchalantly, as if thinking about his retainer in the act of procreation didn't disturb him in the least—Takumi supposed it wouldn't, considering how Zero was—“I was surprised he fell for her. I was under the impression that Zero preferred men.”

“Sakura told me she put on a ring and it just...” Takumi made a meaningless hand gesture, “...happened. She instantly fell deeply in love and wanted nothing more than to have a child by him. ...Gods, it sounds even worse when I have to say it myself.”

Leon said, “Give me a moment,” and disappeared into the backroom. He returned with two glasses of milk, popping the corks open and sliding one bottle to Takumi as he dragged a chair up to the counter from the other side and sat down, facing him.

“Takumi,” he said, “I think we're in danger.”

“No kidding.”

“No, think about it. Let's suppose that it happens like your sister said, and the woman is struck by—let's call it the birthing curse for now—let's say she's struck by the birthing curse when she accepts the ring.”

“Uh huh?”

Leon took a swig of milk to fill the pause. Takumi did likewise, not wanting to be left out.

“Then,” Leon said, licking the milk from his upper lip in a rather unprincely manner, “when was the man cursed?”

“Oh. If he wasn't in love with her until the curse, he had to have been hit before he went and bought the wedding ring.”

“Exactly. And we don't know how and when,” Leon said, chugging his milk and slamming the bottle down onto the counter to punctuate his point. “Takumi. As bachelors, we are in grave danger.”

“You're a mage,” Takumi said. “Do you know any warding spells?”

Leon shook his head. “Whatever this is, it isn't magic. Considering that your pious sister was afflicted, I doubt it's divine in origin, either.”

“There has to be a way.” Takumi chugged the rest of his milk, too—knowing it'd probably give him a stomachache later, but he was starting to get used to it—and pushed his bottle aside. “Okay. What do we know?”

“It befalls the woman upon receipt of a wedding ring,” Leon said. “She seems to be completely taken by the curse and has no desire to break from it, and the same goes for the husband, even if they would have found each other repellent a short time ago.”

They pondered for a moment, milk bottles empty. “I suppose this goes without saying,” Takumi said, “but it only afflicts a person once.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, no one in a relationship has been struck by the urge to propose to a third party...”

“I get it,” Leon said with excitement, pounding his fist into his other hand. “And Lajvard and Luna, who had been dating before the war and recently announced their intent to wed, haven't been struck by the urge to wed anyone else either.”

“Luna still gave birth to a daughter,” Takumi pointed out. “And in less than a month, like the others.”

“That's true. So it wouldn't help us to simply find a woman we can trust.” Leon drummed his fingers on the countertop, looking to the side in thought. Takumi, likewise, stared out the window at the purple sky above Castle Kamui, trying to think of how he could use these facts before him to escape this war without issue—

And then the answer struck him.

He looked back at Leon at the same instant that Leon looked back at him.

“You've thought of the same solution, haven't you,” Leon said.

“We can get it annulled after the war,” Takumi said.

“Deal. Marry me.”

* * *

The army was roundly surprised to learn of their dormant sexuality—although Sakura, Oboro, and Hinata seemed less surprised than Takumi might've liked.

Takumi was hoping that Sakura could officiate, but Sofie had stepped on the caltraps left at the castle entrance and seemed to be coming down with lockjaw at record speed, so she had to back out of the arrangement in order to be at her sick child's bedside.

Instead, they were left with Asama.

“We've all gathered here on this fine day,” Asama said cheerily as Leon and Takumi held hands before a motley crowd of attendees, “to celebrate the union of Leon, Second Prince of Nohr, and Takumi, Second Prince of Hoshido, dearest of friends, recently awakened to the irrepressible urge to part their bottoms for each other.”

“May I remind you that I outrank you,” Takumi said pointedly, hoping his scarlet face didn't ruin the intensity of his glare.

“Have a sense of humor, milord,” Asama said, waving him off. “What's a marriage without laughter?”

“Your joke is in poor taste and no one is laughing,” Leon said thinly. Actually, Zero seemed to be trying not to laugh from where he stood in the crowd, but Takumi wasn't about to let Asama win any ground. “Please marry us and stand down, as you are obviously ill-suited for this line of work.”

“Very well then. Since both of you are sour enough to ruin the occasion no matter how much work others devote to it, you're married. Now let's all make the most of our evenings.”

Without further ado, Asama left.

Takumi looked uncertainly at Leon, who was still holding his hand. “Do we exchange rings now?”

“It seems about right,” Leon said, taking a ring from his pocket. It was an old and attractive thing, and as he slid it onto Takumi's finger, he saw that it was inlaid with the seal of Nohr carved into an opal.

It must've been a royal heirloom, something he would've given his real wife someday. Leon never did anything halfway.

(He'd probably want it back, too. Which was fine, because Takumi was giving him Queen Mikoto's ring—one of his few precious keepsakes of her—and he also meant to give it to his eventual real wife.)

Once he had finished slipping his own ring onto Leon's long knobby finger, they looked at each other and smiled awkwardly. The whole thing felt unexpectedly real. The ring was there on his finger, cold and weighty. 

It suddenly struck him that it was real. Reasons be damned, he had just married his friend.

And despite Asama's attitude, the crowd was still watching them.

Waiting for them to kiss.

“They're watching,” Takumi whispered. “We're going to have to...”

Wordlessly, Leon closed his eyes, turned his head, and brought his face closer. _It means I'll be free from the birthing curse,_ Takumi reminded himself as he tilted his head in the other direction and leaned forward to meet him halfway.

When his upper lip graced against Leon's skin, Takumi involuntarily flinched, realizing that he was about to kiss, his _first_ kiss, and his male Nohrian friend's lips were on his and everything about this was _so strange_.

The crowd cheered and applauded. 

They held that position for a moment before they parted, Leon letting out a very convincing sigh. They gave each other pained we're-going-to-get-through-this smiles as they turned to face the crowd, hand in hand.

* * *

Kamui was waiting for them at the front of the crowd.

“I'm so happy for you, my precious little brothers,” she said with a cheeky little smile. “I'm here to show you to your new room.”

“Room?” both of them echoed simultaneously.

“Of course. It's my wedding gift to all new couples. Come on, I'll show you.”

They followed her as she wound through the castle grounds, merrily humming a Nohrian tune to herself. They were still holding hands for some reason. Takumi gently tugged his hand free.

Eventually they came to a little treehouse at the edge of the castle grounds. Unlike Kamui's, the little cabin was perched within a sakura tree, somehow in full bloom in the middle of fall.

“I hope you like it,” Kamui said. “Now I'll leave you to your business.”

She winked at them and walked away.

Takumi and Leon looked at each other.

“Do we have to... consummate the marriage to ward off the curse?” Leon said.

“I hope not,” Takumi said, starting the climb up to the room. “I think I'll take my chances.”

“Agreed,” Leon said, climbing up behind him.


	2. An Arrangement Most Unfortunate

The room was very blue. It was as if the decorator were besides themselves with glee at the fact that they both had the same favorite color, and promptly abandoned good design sense in favor of drenching the whole place in blue: walls, flooring, sheets. The only thing that wasn't blue was the chandelier hanging from the ceiling.

Their things had all been magically moved into their new room—Leon's in a heap to the left, Takumi's in a heap to the right, and one too-small bed in the middle. Takumi thought that he could see his childhood doll peeping out from the heap—Why did Orochi have to bring it with her to the war campaign!?—and quietly reminded himself to hide it at some point while Leon wasn't around.

Leon also turned his eyes uncomfortably away from his own pile, and Takumi looked at his stuff, curious about what embarrassing gem was hidden there.

As if to distract him, Leon said, “What should we do about the bed?” as he walked over to the bed and lifted one corner of the blanket, apparently displeased by what he found underneath.

“Sleep in it?” Takumi said, thinking to himself that he hadn't shared a bed with anyone since he had burrowed into Orochi's futon as a kid.

“Well, one might hope. It's too small to fit two people comfortably, and there's only one blanket.”

Takumi sighed. “It's like some teenage girl's idea of how couples sleep every night.”

“Unfortunately, our sister is a teenage girl,” Leon said, letting the blanket fall back on the bed. He sat down, looking at Takumi with determination. “So. How are we going to deal with this?”

Takumi went to the other side of the bed and sat down as well, his back to Leon, his pile of belongings in full view. “Honestly, this bed is too soft,” he said. “I'll take the floor if I can have the blanket.”

“Declined,” Leon said. “I need the blanket.”

“Come on, the bed is already more your style than mine,” Takumi sighed. “Can't you sleep in your clothes and compromise?”

Leon cleared his throat, shifting a little—Takumi glanced back and saw that he had crossed his legs—and muttered, “I can't sleep without a blanket.”

Takumi grinned to himself at the idea of self-assured Leon needing a blanket to sleep.

“I have poor circulation,” Leon added quickly. “My hands and feet would freeze.”

“All right then, do you have any ideas?”

Leon thought for a moment and proposed, “We could ask Kamui for more blankets.”

“Or we could ask anyone _other_ than the person who left us with a single blanket,” Takumi said flatly.

“Ah. Yes. I see your point.” Leon rose from the bed and folded his hands behind him, nodding once to Takumi. “Let's see about finding more bedding before nightfall.”

“Meet you back here,” Takumi said, waiting for Leon to leave first so he could hide his embarrassing personal items.

Leon lingered.

They both stood there awkwardly. It wasn't long before they realized that they both had the same idea.

“You can't want to stay with me that badly, Takumi?” Leon teased.

What a cowardly way to play the situation to his advantage. That did it. There was no way Takumi was leaving first.

“That's funny,” Takumi said. “From where I'm standing, it looks like you can't stand to leave my side.”

Leon narrowed his eyes at him—his signature _Fine, you want to play?_ look. “Tsk. We've been married for all of an hour and it's already made you as delusional as a woman.”

Takumi gawked. That was an amazingly low blow for what he'd thought of as innocent bantering. “I'm not your _woman_. And I'm taking the blanket.”

Without waiting for a response, he yanked the blanket off of the bed and shook it to fold it halfway. Leon frowned and said, “I was serious about needing that.”

“Get your own,” Takumi said, spreading it on the floor and reclining on top of it, giving Leon a challenging look.

Leon looked down at him with narrowed eyes, as if considering whether it would be beneath him to just yank the blanket out from underneath Takumi.

Instead, Leon said, “If this is how it's going to be, I suspect our marriage is going to end poorly.”

“It's going to end in annulment,” Takumi said, waving him off. “We already know that. Get your own blanket.”

For a long moment, Leon looked down at him. Takumi was increasingly nervous about what he was about to do next.

Then Leon carefully laid next to him on the blanket, on the floor, stomach-down and propped up by his elbows. “We could share the blanket. And the bed.”

Takumi had no idea where that came from.

“I kick in my sleep,” he could only think to say.

“So do I.”

Leon looked quite serious about it.

“I'm told I also thrash,” Takumi said. “I don't think you want to sleep next to me.”

“Were you told that as a child?” Leon said. “You might've grown out of it by now. I used to sleepwalk.”

Takumi was slow to process this new revelation. He said instead, to stop this conversation from becoming some horrible exchange of confessions, “Why are you so intent on sleeping with me?”

Leon nudged one elbow against Takumi's shoulder. “I realized that if we're going to be playing at being a couple for several months, we're going to have to get used to each other. It would be unbearable otherwise.”

Takumi looked up at Leon's placid face, vaguely in disbelief at how quickly he cooled down. Then he said, “So you promise... not to reject me for anything weird I do in my sleep?”

“As long as you don't reject me for anything you discover about me in the next few days,” Leon said.

Takumi awkwardly rose to his feet and stepped off the blanket. Leon lifted it from the floor and gave it a thorough shake in the air, apparently perturbed by the idea of it having touched the floor. Nohrians could be so odd about that.

Leon spread the blanket over the bed a little awkwardly, most of the blanket clumping to one side—Takumi supposed neither of them were used to making a bed by themselves—before climbing into bed. He took up half the bed just sitting there. Takumi joined him, bracing himself for the inevitable amount of bumping, touching, and jostling that would follow in the coming months.

Leon's arm pressed against his as he sat down. Takumi could feel the edge of the bed curving away from his leg. Leon was sitting right next to the edge, too.

It was just something he was going to have to get used to.

“I have no idea how I can fall asleep like this,” Takumi said. He meant Leon's arm, but as he looked up at the ceiling, he realized that he didn't know how to make the chandelier stop shining, either.

Leon looked up alongside him, then half-rose from the bed—his legs bumping amply against Takumi's as he did—to press a hand against the wall at the head of their bed.

A gust blew through, blowing out the candles in the chandelier, leaving the room in darkness. Nightfall had already come.

“Oh. That's a convenient place to put a Dragon Vein,” Takumi said.

“Yes. This room's design has clearly been thought out. Our discomfort is intentional.”

Leon carefully settled down into the bed, brushing against Takumi as he did so. He turned onto his side, creating the slightest bit of room—Takumi did the same, facing the other way. 

Their bottoms touched.

“Sorry,” Takumi said automatically, shifting a bit and kicking Leon in the calves as he did so.

“It happens.”

Takumi laid very still, in danger of falling off the bed in one direction, and in danger of touching Leon's ass in the other.

He was fairly certain there was no way he was going to fall asleep tonight.

As he laid there, thinking over everything that had led to this moment, a thought occurred to him.

“I never gave Mozume a ring,” he said aloud.

“I would hope not,” came Leon's voice in reply.

“I mean, she was trying to propose to me. But I never gave her a ring, so why would she?”

“The curse might work both ways. She could've been trying to give you a ring.”

“Maybe,” Takumi said, feeling vaguely disgruntled that the gods had made him out to be the woman in the equation with _Mozume_. But when had the gods ever favored him?

A moment of silence passed. Then Leon said, “I don't think I can fall asleep.”

“Me neither. Should we go get a bedroll?”

Leon made a discontented sound and said, “It's cold outside.”

“True,” Takumi acknowledged.

Another pause. Then Leon asked, “What do you do to fall asleep?”

“I imagine Oboro sewing.”

Leon burst into laughter behind him, bed shaking under them both.

“I have no idea how she has the patience,” Takumi said. “It's just over and under, over and under—just thinking about it makes me nod off.”

“I'll try that,” Leon said.

Takumi adjusted the way his shoulder sank into the bed. He closed his eyes, stayed very still, and imagined Oboro's needle weaving slowly, so slowly, across cloth.

* * *

Something cold touched his legs. Strange.

Wait. This wasn't his bed and this wasn't his room—and as he turned over he smacked into _someone next to him_.

Said someone let out a grunt of pain and muttered, “What the heck, Takumi.”

“Leon?”

Then the events of the last day came back to Takumi as he caught his breath. Sheepishly, he removed his elbow from Leon's face.

“No kidding, you thrash,” Leon grumbled, rubbing at his face in the dim light of morning.

“Sorry. Are you all right?”

“I've survived worse.”

Evidently Takumi had caught him against one cheekbone, which (but for some redness) seemed to be faring just fine. “You weren't kidding about your freezing feet,” Takumi thought out loud.

“Naturally,” Leon said. He took his hand away from his face and looked at Takumi. “So. What kind of sex did we have last night?”

“—What!?”

“Presumably, as a married couple, we would have had sex last night. Let's get our story straight before we contradict each other.”

“Who even asks that?” Takumi said flatly—and then he remembered how Leon's retainer could be—and amended it to, “Who would we _tell_?”

“Well—It shows in your reaction, you know. Whether you blush or cough.”

“Fine.” Takumi pulled himself up to a sitting position and rubbed at his woolly eyes. He hadn't gotten nearly enough sleep. “Let's say it was fantastic, then. We went at it for three hours until we fell asleep on top of each other.”

There came no reply from beside him. Takumi looked at Leon, wondering what was so strange. Leon was looking up at him with a bemused expression. “You're a virgin, aren't you.”

Takumi flushed and replied hotly, “Like you're not?”

Leon grinned to himself.

“All right, so you're not. You tell me, then. How was last night?”

“Sloppy and awkward, yet not altogether terrible. No anal, unless you want to feign a limp all day.”

“This seems like an excessive amount of detail,” Takumi muttered, still red.

“It might be,” Leon agreed, “but I prefer to plan ahead.”

“Ugh,” Takumi said, rubbing at his eyes one last time before throwing his legs over the side of the bed. “I'm going to have nightmares every night.”

* * *

Later, as he almost tripped over a bow left carelessly on the ground, Takumi remembered his dream.

He had dreamt that he and Leon had a son together. His son, seeming to have Leon's streak of genius, had surpassed his skills in archery as a two-week-old teenager, all with a dumb toddler grin on his face.

It was the worst dream he'd ever had.

* * *

The next morning, Kamui called them both to the castle gates. The caltraps had at some point been set aside, and Takumi walked—and Leon rode—up to where their sister was waiting with two large rucksacks.

“You'll want these where we're going,” she said, handing the sacks to them. Takumi peered inside. It seemed to contain a bunch of camping supplies and packages of what was probably food. (He would've been so happy for the bedroll last night.)

“Where are we going?” Takumi and Leon said at the same time.

Kamui winked at them both. “I can't say more until we get there.”

The two of them exchanged glances as they followed, wondering if Kamui was once again about to lead them off the edge of a cliff.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2/23/2017: I no longer plan to continue/finish this.  
> 11/13/2017: [Here's notes on how the fic was supposed to go](http://ammie-plays-fe14.tumblr.com/post/167467679037/the-mysterious-case-of-the-birthing-curse), if you're curious.


End file.
